Introduction

Origins

The City

Collegeville (1887, 1895)
College Delta (1898, 1899)
Oakwood (1899)
Cedar Banks (1900)
College Grove (1903)
Fairview (1904, 1905)
College Heights (1904)

Charter of 1907

Avondale (1913)
Bungalow Knolls (1916)
Chesterfield Hills (1916)
Ardson (1919)
Ridgeley Park (1921)
Strathmore (1925)
Glen Cairn (1926)
Bailey (1927)
Touraine (1927)

The Campus

Chronology

Interactive Map

Sites on the National and State Historic Registers

Complete list of
Significant Structures

Sources

Faculty Row No.7 — Cowles House (1857, 1950) SR

Cowles House, August 2006. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

Cowles House started life as one of four brick cottages built as the first faculty residences on campus in 1857. The bricks used in its construction were made of clay dug from the banks of the Red Cedar River and fired in a temporary kiln in the hollow near West Circle Drive south of Beal Entrance. Early M.A.C. Presidents Joseph R. Williams (1857-59) and Theophilus C. Abbot (1862-1884) are said to have lived here.

As the Faculty Row expanded and a new President's residence was built, the house became known as "Number 7" and for many years was the residence of the Professor of Botany. As such, it housed such luminaries as William Beal and Ernst Bessey.

Faculty Row No.7, residence of the Professor of Botany, circa 1913.
The front porch is a "much later" addition. Photo Credit: Beal, p.35.

Between 1874 and 1941, No.7 was remodeled and expanded several times. With the appointment of John A. Hannah as President in 1941, the house became once again the President's residence, and was rechristened Cowles House after Alice B. Cowles, mother of Frederick Cowles Jenison (M.A.C. '06). Jenison, grandson of Albert Cowles (who as one of M.A.C.'s first students in 1857 helped to haul the bricks), died a millionaire and bequeathed his entire estate to his alma mater, which provided funding for Jenison Fieldhouse (1940) and a major renovation to Cowles House (1950).[Kestenbaum, p.52]

Although Cowles House is widely known as "the oldest building on campus," only two of No.7's original exterior walls, and a portion of the original stone foundation, remain in place: the front entrance façade and the adjacent wall on the east elevation. They can be discerned by the decorative brickwork at the eave line and gables. (The oldest building on campus in essentially its original form is the Library-Museum.)

Cowles House, utterly obscured by thousands of 'Merrill' magnolia blossoms, Spring 1994.
Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth

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